The present invention relates to a self-contained air-conditioning unit with a compressor, a condenser, an evaporator, etc. accommodated within one box-shaped body.
Referring to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the main body of a conventional self-contained air-conditioning unit a was composed of a base plate b, a bulkhead e on the base plate b for dividing between the indooor draft route c and the outdoor draft route d, an outer box f, etc. An outdoor heat exchanger h is mounted against the rear face g in the outdoor draft route d. Also, a motor i was mounted on the bulkhead e so that the rotary shaft of the motor might become perpendicular to the bulkhead e. A propeller fan j was mounted at one end of the motor i so that the fan might blow the air towards the outdoor heat exchanger h. The propeller fan was provided with a ring p for raising the water located within the base plate b to blow it against the outdoor heat exchanger h. A compressor k together with the outdoor heat exchanger h performed the well known refrigerating cycle togeher with the outdoor heat exchanger h. An indoor heat exchanger m was mounted, facing the front face l, in the indoor draft route c. A multivane fan o was mounted, at the other end of the motor i, facing the indoor heat exchanger m and blew, into an air duct n, the air passing through the indoor heat exchanger m. The ideal draft route in this type of air-conditioning unit has low resistance to air flow. Accordingly, the heat exchanger is required to have a wider cross-sectional area (hereinafter referred to as front-face area) and the draft route is required to be shorter (hereinafter referred to as row number), wider, smoother and less-curved. Such characteristics as described hereinabove constitute those of a draft route of smaller draft resistance, allowing a self contained air-conditioning unit to be realized which is capable of ventilating the air with lower noises and larger amounts of air with the use of a motor of small capacity.
However, the conventional self-contained air-conditioning unit was mounted through a wall or in a window. The area of the front face was made as small as possible so that a large hole might not be necessary to be made or the lighting through the window would not be overly diminished.
Also, this type of conventional air-conditioning unit was made smaller in size to reduce the cost. As the indoor multivane fan o and the outdoor propeller fan j were simultaneously driven by one motor i as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, an indoor heat exchanger m and an outdoor heat exchanger h were obliged to be disposed, respectively, along the front face and the rear face g of the self-contained air-conditioning unit a. Accordingly, the indoor and outdoor draft routes c and d for respectively ventilating the air into the heat exchangers m and h were obliged to become narrower and curved routes.
Thus, a motor i of much larger capacity was required for the draft, and the front face area of each of the heat exchangers m and h was obliged to become smaller. Each of the heat exchangers m and h was caused to be longer in the number of stages and to be greater in depth, thus resulting in the motor i and the heat exchangers m and h being of higher cost. This result became contrary to an initial object of using one fan motor i to lower the price. Also, the conventional self-contained air-conditioning unit was not good even with regard to the draft route construction. Namely, since two fans o and j were desired to be mounted at the ends of one motor i within a restricted box-shaped body as described hereinabove, the shapes on the inlet side and the blow-off sides of the multivane fan o and the propeller fan j were not formed to allow the fans o and j to be driven at lower noise levels. Also, since the ring p faced the horizon at an approximately right angle within the base plate b, its capacity to raise and efficiency in raising the condensed water was smaller, thus contributing little towards improving the capacity of the heat exchanger. In addition, as large water drops flew when the water was raised, larger noises were caused.
As described hereinabove, the conventional construction of the self-contained air-conditioning unit had disadvantages in that large noises were inevitably caused, a motor of large capacity was required, and the condensed water coming from the indoor heat exchanger could not be efficiently disposed of.